D. W. Griffith is one of the most well-known individuals in the silent film era. According to Jon Lewis, his movies are mostly about intransigent racism or miscegenation. However, because the nature of racism in some of his work, it is understandably hard to appreciate the man for his craft. D. W. Griffith’s silent films are often Victorian melodramas with full of innovations to shot types in combination with editing to create compelling sequences. One of D. W. Griffith’s more recognized works is Broken Blossoms, a film about a Chinese young man, in hopes of spreading the Oriental ideology of love and peace to the far European lands, found out about the harsh reality of that society. He eventually found love but that love “can never be realized”
…show more content…
Both Jon Lewis and Susan Koshy agreed on that Griffith used race as one of his main factors in his craft. In this sense, it is the interracial unrealized love between Cheng and Lucy Burrows that ultimately resulted in their demise. Because this is a silent film, there was an inevitable use of “stereotypes as a visual shorthand” (Lewis, 62) and somehow this could have bled across the border of racism. Cheng was portrayed to be the feminine Oriental man with a hunchback and very slight, slow movements that was supposed to be more harmonized than the fast macho movements of European men as seen in the scene where the sailors were fighting each other in the beginning of the movie. This scene actually sparks the reason why Cheng must go there to spread his more harmonious ideology to this somewhat barbaric lifestyle. This sense of separation in culture is also re-emphasized at the scene where he is at the Limehouse. According to Koshy, his isolation in that scene is highlighted by “his pensive, unseeing gaze and the irising of the lens” (Koshy, 67). There was also the iconic European female character who is fragile, pure and frail in her personality. The romance was portrayed somewhat different between the movie version of Griffith and Burke’s short version The Chink and the Child. Griffith wants to retain
Both Jon Lewis and Susan Koshy agreed on that Griffith used race as one of his main factors in his craft. In this sense, it is the interracial unrealized love between Cheng and Lucy Burrows that ultimately resulted in their demise. Because this is a silent film, there was an inevitable use of “stereotypes as a visual shorthand” (Lewis, 62) and somehow this could have bled across the border of racism. Cheng was portrayed to be the feminine Oriental man with a hunchback and very slight, slow movements that was supposed to be more harmonized than the fast macho movements of European men as seen in the scene where the sailors were fighting each other in the beginning of the movie. This scene actually sparks the reason why Cheng must go there to spread his more harmonious ideology to this somewhat barbaric lifestyle. This sense of separation in culture is also re-emphasized at the scene where he is at the Limehouse. According to Koshy, his isolation in that scene is highlighted by “his pensive, unseeing gaze and the irising of the lens” (Koshy, 67). There was also the iconic European female character who is fragile, pure and frail in her personality. The romance was portrayed somewhat different between the movie version of Griffith and Burke’s short version The Chink and the Child. Griffith wants to retain